Ms. Roy,
I watched
your sit-down with Ms. Sagarika Ghose from CNN-IBN via the internet, and I tried to understand the reasons that you laid out for your disenchantment with- and lack of confidence in- various Lokpal Bills that have been proposed - Jan Lokpal Bill by Team Anna, Aruna Roy and colleagues' version, and the government's Lokpal Bill. But I could not. Probably because you said a lot without having said anything.
At the end of this video, all I wanted to ask you is: What would you rather have done, and how? What do you think can/should be done to tackle the scourge of corruption? What are your ideas? How would you mobilize the opinion and the masses around your ideas? How would you ensure that participation in the movement is not skewed by and for a certain sector of society? Pray tell us. We need more disparate voices in order to come up with an effective bill, and yours can certainly be one of those voices, for people listen to you when you say something.
Now, please allow me to go point-by-point about the whole host of "issues" that you say leave you skeptical about the Lokpal Bill, what it can/may accomplish and the movement. I am using the major phrases that you used during your conversation with Ms. Ghose in order to pin-point the 'reasons of your disenchantment with the movement and the bill':
1. Its an NGO driven movement, has Magsaysay Award winners linked to Rockefeller and Ford Foundation, hidden agenda? - Aren't you just implying a 'guilt by association' here, that is if there is any guilt at all?! If I didn't know better, I'd say that the 1997 Booker Prize that was to be your claim to fame, was awarded to you by an organization whose principal sponsor is a company that manages hedge funds and commodity futures -
Man Group. So by your standards, you should be the last one to be associated with social movements. But then, the sponsor of the prize when you won it was a company called
Booker Group - this company derives a bulk of its billion pound profits from coffee, tobacco, alcohol, among other things. You'd probably know more about how these three industries are exploitative of not just natural resources but of peoples as well, and in more than one way. Now isn't it ironic that you accepted the Booker Prize awarded to you by these guys happily, even though these companies are the very epitome of businesses exploiting globalization and embracing new-imperialism, that you so thoroughly now despise. Will it be ok if we called this your double standard and hypocritical stance on things, as you so comfortably chose to do when talking about Team Anna's members and question their intentions and motives?
2. World Bank's Agenda (increasing political accountability, strengthening civil society's participation, creating competitive private sector, instituting restraint on power, improving public sector management - increasing penetration of
international capital) - the only "questionable/nefarious" goal in this list, if one is at all, seems to be 'creating competitive private sector'. So may be 'resource exploitation' by MNCs is one of the agendas behind what bodies such as World Bank/IMF/UN end up promoting, and that too at the expense of the welfare of the native peoples in these resource rich but socially stricken countries. If anything, putting in place the mechanisms (such as anti-corruption laws) that will allow people to question their own government's dealings with external players, will only help limit their exploitation. Isn't it? Now someone will make profit off of all the business, but then that is the cost that has to be paid in a setting that is not utopian.
3. NGOs taking over government's agenda - going by the yardstick that you ascribe to, aren't other movements, lets say the ones that you espouse so dearly e.g. Sardar Sarovar Project, also taking over government's agenda by being unwilling to allow the government even the slightest wiggle room when it tries to address those issues. Instead of suggesting solutions to tackle the issues, all that you and your ilk do is raise hullabaloo about what is wrong with something. Please also try to suggest some remedial measures.
4. Anna Hazare being a passive-vessel/figure-head for the movement - may be this is the case or may be it is not. Only Anna and his team's inner circle will be privy to that I suppose. The way I look at it, as austere a lifestyle as Anna embodies in this day and age when hoarding material possessions is a measure of success and even ones virtuosity, there are no monetary/material/political-ambition incentives for him to have embraced this movement. So you may fault him for letting his team hijack his agenda, if that indeed was the case, but you may not fault him for the purity of his intentions. I'll put such a face to a movement everytime. Won't you?
5. Medha Patekar and Prashant Bhushan's credibility - I don't know what to say, other than that 'innocent until proven guilty'! You did not offer any explanations.
6. Maoists and India Against Corruption (Jan Lokpal Bill) movement seek overthrow of government, parallel oligarchy, research committee comprised of eminent people selected by self-proclaimed leaders of civil society - if overthrow of the government was indeed the goal of this movement, "they" would have let Anna die, and the aftermath of that alone would have ensured an uprising (and I am sure an armed one and bloody) the likes of which haven't been seen in this country for a long time.
7. Currency of social transaction in unequal society from bottom of the socioeconomic ladder to the very top, perpetual economic inequality - corruption is rampant because both the parties that are involved, the one seeking bribe and the one bribing, have an incentive to do so, irrespective of their socioeconomic status and wellbeing. It will be easier to disincentivize bribe seeking than it will to disincentivize bribe giving, don't you think? Jan Lokpal being proposed will have mechanisms built in it that achieve precisely that.
8. Why aren't corporations and NGOs under Lokpal's ambit - I agree with you, they should be. And if I recall correctly it was suggested on the floor of the house as well, and I believe this is something that will be considered when the standing committee convenes.
9. Media's role in this movement - I agree with you that media saw this movement as an opportunity to have eyeballs glued to the TV screens, and they had wall to wall coverage of the spectacle that this movement was to become. Moreover, media did not help deliberate the provisions of various Lokpal Bill versions as diligently as it should have.
10. Mobilization from BJP and RSS - I ask you, so what if BJP and RSS were involved. Isn't it their democratic right to participate and dissent. Don't they have as much right to have an opinion in the matter as anyone else? If your concern stems out of the fact that both these organizations have right-wing tendencies, then you need only think about the calm and peace with which people participating in the movement conducted themselves. What do you say?
11. One man's regressive piece of legislation - just earlier you said that you think Anna was only a figure head and not the original brains behind the proposed bill or the movement. I am sure you see the contradiction of your statements there, don't you. Even if you think of Anna's Team alone as the overarching architects of the bill and the movement surrounding it, other members and groups from the "civil society" were and are surely welcome to put forth their points of view once the standing committee begins its hearings. If that is not the democracy at work, I don't what is/can be.
12. Aggressive nationalism, chants etc., communist history of vande' mataram, and national flag's waving and exclusion - so would you rather have had five thousand people go on a fast-unto-death at Ramlila Maidan? They needed to vent, and feel a sense of camaraderie while working towards a common goal, and slogan shouting and music and prayers helped them channelize their emotions and energies, instead of doing something more drastic and destructive.
13. Anna going to private hospital at the very end - Dr. Trehan and his team were attending to Anna. Dr. Trehan is one of the founding members of Medanta Medcity, and as he was responsible for Anna's well-being, he chose to take him where he thought he could best take care of him. Having said that, may be it would have been appropriate to take Anna to AIIMS or Lady Harding or Maulana Azad Medical College. But then, I am certain that your criticism would still be the same.
14. Spontaneity and size of crowds, comparisons to Babri Masjid demolition - are you kidding me, with comparison to Babri Masjid demolition mob? I mean, really? Did you not see that for the most part, the two weeks of Anna's fast and the peoples' participation in the movement was peaceful?
Spontaneity - social networking tools via internet did play a role in mobilizing opinion as well as crowds, there is no denying that, in some huge numbers I might add. If you were looking for the rural participation, that was ofcourse sparse. First we need to inform people in remote villages about the bill, its provisions, and the movement itself. Part of that responsibility will certainly lie with the elected representatives from those areas, if not all of it.
15. Anna's persona, not like Gandhi, not his own man, not in-charge - I don't know about that. You yourself have called this bill as 'one man's regressive piece of legislation'. Moreover, Gandhi was "in-charge" because there was this largest political party of the country that he had the backing of and that he was backing. Would you have been supportive of Anna and his movement if he was openly affiliated with, lets say BJP or RSS or BSP or with Congress for that matter?
16. Fast-unto-death for Jan Lokpal, not interested, but interested in other issues ... - I don't know what to say to you. Anna chose a fast-unto-death as the tool of his choice to make his point. I think it was a move out of desperation more than anything else, and by the way, he was the only one on a fast. Where on the other hand, there are thousands of Naxals up in the arms killing people willy-nilly. What means would you have preferred he and his supporters adopted?
17. This movement cannot be a precedent for protest movements of future, this has been a privileged protest movement - I reluctantly have to agree with your first assertion, but I cannot with the second. It would have been a privileged movement if the corporate houses had chosen to fund the movement, and had their banners all across Ramlila Maidan! But that was not the case. As far as I know, donations consisted predominantly of small sums of money donated mostly by people with limited means i.e. those who even value the tax rebate that they can avail from such donations. Now, if you are saying that people who showed up at the ground were more privileged than the ones whose causes you champion, I'd have to call you on that. The setting of the protest was such that it was literally in the corridors of power. Do you think it would have drawn same coverage and participation if it had been in some remote village of Jharkhand? I am sure it would not have. But even so, if the provisions such as citizen's charter and disincentives for irresponsible office holders are anything to go by, beneficiaries of it won't just be people who live in urban or semi-urban settings. People everywhere will benefit from this bill - only, most of us will need to be trained to avail of it correctly. RTI is a good example of that happening, isn't it?
The reason police did not use force or was reluctant to use force may have been that the government had started on the wrong foot from the very outset by jailing Anna. But, why do you choose to ignore the fact that the crowds that had gathered at various venues in cities and town across the country were peaceful as such a mass movement can be. But then you have already made up your mind, so enough said.
As far as your article titled
'I'd rather not be Anna' that appeared in The Hindu on August 21, 2011 goes, even if I were to accept the examples that you have cited in your writeup on face value, I do not agree with the conclusions that you have drawn from them. But still, I'll go so far as to say that your concluding remark was spot-on. I am certain that you'd agree me when I say we need more disparate voices in order to come up with an effective bill. But, wouldn't you agree with me that today we don't just need critics and cynics who can point to the problems with almost anything and everything, what we are desperately in need of is some creative and effective solutions for those problems, and people who can come up with those solutions.
Ms. Roy, once again, my only question to you is: What do you think can/should be done to tackle the scourge of corruption? What are your ideas? How would you mobilize the opinion and the masses around your ideas? How would you ensure that participation in the movement is not skewed by and for a certain sector of society? Please enlighten us.
- I'd rather be Anna. Actually, I'd rather be Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, but that is a whole another ...
